


Shaping Destiny and Self

by Merfilly



Category: Chronicles of Amber - Roger Zelazny
Genre: Community: spook_me, Drabble Sequence, Gen, POV Antagonist, POV First Person, Spook Me Multi-Fandom Halloween Ficathon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-07 20:46:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16415663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: Brand, in his pursuit of all he could attain, became something other than either Court or Amber could foresee.





	Shaping Destiny and Self

Was this what we had been? Was this something we had lost when Dworkin constrained the power of the Eye to the Pattern?

I smiled, willing myself to a shape more useful to take up the hunt once more. Let the Courts believe they had me under their thumb. Let the Logrus believe it held me in its sway.

All they had done was open my full birthright, and all of Creation would be mine. Pattern or Logrus, it mattered not. I was a living Trump, confined by neither power and able to call upon both.

Amber would be mine.

+++

Lose a limb, shape a new one. Have my siblings grow too close, sidestep into a new Shadow with a new form. How easy this all was now. All I needed was to choose my victim, lure them in, and use them to begin the destruction ahead.

How fortunate for me that my siblings had begun making children of their own. Certainly one of those could be adapted to my use.

How sweet it would be to twist my victim up against the dear family, so that when I used their blood, they felt no hope at all for anyone.

+++

Being the consummate actor was not what any truly expected of me, in truth. And I have to admit that it was harder to shape myself to Martin's expectations than it was to do as I had been in manipulating the family to their various factions.

It was exhausting, mostly, to put on the concerned uncle guise. It itched on my skin to do so.

But the look on Martin's face would be worth it, when I opened his veins to desecrate the Pattern and open the door to Amber's downfall.

The only look that would be better was mine.

+++

Corwin, darling idiot brother and perfect scapegoat, had no idea how many times I was close enough to slit his throat with him unknowing. Fiona had no idea just how easy she was to set on the path I needed her.

Fools, all of them, I had decided decades before. With Oberon out of the way, it would be simple.

Once more, I set my appearance to the sickly, weak face they expected, and allowed myself to be chained in a dungeon of one of my Chaos minions. I held all the keys now, and then endgame is finally near.

+++

No more hiding. I was so much stronger than them all, and they were victims to my slaughter. I shaped the very reality they faced me in, and turned every Shadow against them while shaping myself to the fight.

I was at the peak of my strength, an heir in the wings already for the second part, when I overthrew the Courts. Nothing could or would ever stop me, and all of reality would finally belong to —

— the pain blossomed in my throat, pure silver tearing away all of my crafting.

How… Caine?! Never that smart, how… failed… son… avenge…


End file.
